Album dossier / 1988

Straight Outta Compton

N.W.A · Hip-Hop/Gangsta Rap

Recorded during summer and fall 1988 at Audio Achievements Studio in Torrance, California for a reported $12,000 budget put up by Eazy-E, N.W.A's debut was co-produced by Dr. Dre with DJ Yella and Arabian Prince, built from sampled horn blasts, sparse funk-guitar riffs, sampled vocals and a Roland TR-808 drum machine for the kick. Dr. Dre later admitted he 'threw that thing together in six weeks so we could have something to sell out of the trunk,' and said he considered the choruses at the time to be little more than himself scratching over the beat. DJ Yella has recalled that the album came together in under a month partly because several tracks were already-recorded songs pulled into the sequence. Despite Dre's own later dismissiveness about its rushed production, the finished record's unsparing depiction of police violence in Compton, especially on 'Fuck tha Police,' drew a formal warning letter from an FBI agent and cemented the group's self-styled reputation as 'the world's most dangerous group,' launching gangsta rap into the mainstream.